Most sepsis-associated deaths in US acute care hospitals are unlikely to be preventable through better hospital-based care, a new study suggests. The cohort study reviewed the medical records of 568 patients (50.9% men, mean age 70.5 years) who were admitted to 6 hospitals and died in the hospital or were discharged to hospice and not readmitted. Researchers found:

Sepsis was the most common immediate cause of death.

Sepsis was present in 300 hospitalizations (52.8%) and directly caused death in 198 (34.9%) cases.

However, most underlying causes of death were related to severe chronic comorbidities.